The European Union towards the Democratic Resilience in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova

The 2021 Batumi summit declaration of the Associated Trio (Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia) appeal to the European Union (EU) policy-makers to reconsider the concept of the Eastern partnership (EaP) and provide a clear declaration on membership perspectives for the EaP countries. In the light of serious geopolitical challenges and democracy threats faced by these countries the discussion on the possible change in the eastern dimension of the EU neighbourhood policy seems topical and necessary. Such discussion should raise the issue of a new tailor-made approach to be applied in a non-uniform manner which takes into consideration existing threats and challenges for the democratisation processes in associated states as potential candidate states. Therefore, the main purpose of the paper is to analyse the factors that contribute to success or failure of the democratisation processes in the Associated Trio including examples of successful EU initiatives and overall impact of the EU and Russia as competing structural powers in the region. The paper poses a question whether the EU might become a transformative structural power as far as its eastern policy-making is concerned and how successful its structural foreign policy has been in supporting the democratic resilience in the associated states since the 2019 European Parliament elections. To answer this question, it seems necessary to divide the factors directly or indirectly influencing the potential of the EU as a structural power in the EaP into the following categories: political, economical, social and religious. In this regard the paper makes an attempt not only to assess the role of the EU in democracy resilience in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova but also consider the prospects of (de)-Europeanization processes in given countries.